Zionism, anti-Semitism, Israel — and the UK Labour party

A shuttered Palestinian shop in Hebron closed down by the Israeli military that was vandalized with a Star of David, an ancient Jewish symbol adopted by the Israeli state as a national symbol. (Photo: Lauren Surface)

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Last October, Jonathan Ofir reported on alleged anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party, after the expulsion of Moshé Machover, Professor of Philosophy at the University of London (see Moshe Machover and the battle for the soul of British Labour, Oct 6, 2017). Professor Machover was reinstated, while others have not been, and now Labour member Tony Greenstein, well-known in the UK for his work against racism—Zionist and otherwise—has been expelled, and his Facebook account suspended.[1]

Bigotry, of which anti-Semitism is but one variety, persists among humankind; and so any large organization composed of a cross-section of people might include anti-whatever bigots among its members. But the ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis in Labour flared up suddenly when Jeremy Corbyn, who as a Member of Parliament was known for supporting human rights in Palestine, upset the British political stage with his surprise victory as party leader. Four months before that December 2015 victory, when polls demonstrated Corbyn’s strong grass-roots popularity, the Jewish Chroniclepanicked and warned of his “alleged funding of Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites.” Labour itself tried to block likely Corbyn voters, but to no avail. He won.

The moment he did, suddenly Labour was crawling with anti-Semites. They all had one thing in common: all these ‘anti-Semites’ were known to be critical of Israel. Rattled by Corbyn’s win, chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis made plain that these—anti-Semitism, and criticism of Israel—were synonymous. He warned that “the hard Left” is “spreading the insidious virus of anti-Semitism,” which is manifested as criticism of Zionism, “one of the axioms of Jewish belief … a noble and integral part of Judaism … a belief in the right to Jewish self-determination.”

The notorious UK tabloid, the Daily Mail, tries to smear Jeremy Corbyn by juxtaposing him against author Tom Suárez, after the latter’s scheduled talk on Israel-Palestine was closed down by PREVENT, the UK’s alleged anti-radicalization program[7]. Contrary to the headline, Suárez never “accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust,” and his branding of Zionism as “fascist” at London’s SOAS—a talk brought to a halt by disruptions—were actually verbatim quotes of Jews fleeing the Nazis, and of US & British intelligence.

The month after the election, the DailyMail, quoting unnamed “experts”, reported that anti-Semitism was now so bad that “European Jews feel as threatened as they did in the Holocaust”—a grotesque belittling of what Hitler’s victims endured. Then in April (2016), the National Review ran a piece entitled “Why the Left hates Jews,” and jumped right to the UK Labour party in the first sentence. The following month, the DailyMailsaid the rate of“hate crimes against Jews soars as report says anti-semitism is at the ‘core’ of far-Left beliefs” . By January 2017, anti-Semitism had increased again, specifically because of Labour (the Telegraph). It continued to get even worse: in July, the BBC and Independent reported “Anti-Semitic attacks hit record high in UK,” and at writing, February 2018, it—yes—has soared even higher (Independent), with Labour said to be in “total disarray” for its failure to confront what one would surmise are the hordes of seething anti-Semities comprising its members.

None of these media betrayed any sense of wonder at the endless series of ever-higher ‘records’, nor any curiosity as to the methodology, data, and motives of the sources, typically the Community Security Trust. The BBC did not even question why, in a September 2017 report headlined “Over a quarter of British people ‘hold anti-Semitic attitudes’,” the survey correlated “attitudes towards Jews” with attitudes towards Israel.

After taking the helm at Labour, Corbyn behaved as politicians do. He suspended an initial eighteen members on charges of criticizing Israel anti-Semitism, with high-profile members Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone making headlines—Shah for reposting a cartoon from Norman Finkelstein’s site, and former London mayor Livingstone for quoting, if very clumsily, from Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. Corbyn further tried to quell the outcry by appointing prominent barrister Shami Chakrabarti to head an Inquiry to investigate anti-Semitism in the Party. But as long as Labour is led by someone who has previously been tarred as ‘pro-Palestinian’, the witchhunt will continue—even though Corbyn himself went silent on Palestine upon his election win.

Among the prominent Labour members complaining that the party was “failing to act on antisemitism” was Jeremy Newmark, an avid supporter of the Israeli state. No action was taken against him when in February it was exposed that he had defrauded the Jewish Leadership Council out of tens of thousands of pounds as chief executive, and misled charities about his finances.[2]

So let’s just blurt it out and get it over with: This inquisition has nothing, nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It is about Israel. It is about protecting that state from censure to insure that it can continue its violations of everything for which we as a civilization claim to stand, without interference.

The core of the debacle—indeed the crux and cause of the entire Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’ [sic]—is that Israel imposes an obligatory moral linkage between it, and world Jewry. Jews, simply by virtue of being Jews, are inexorably, organically welded to the Israeli state. This would be racist on its very principle, even if Israel were the nicest state in the galaxy. Israel forges this construct into its most powerful military weapon: the claim of indivisability between the state and Jewry itself.

After the Chakrabarti Commission found no endemic anti-Semitism in Labour, the claims of anti-Semitism were adjusted to the reality that most anti-Zionists were noted as progressive anti-racists. To quote from this article, “The Home Affairs Select Committee questioned whether Mr Corbyn “fully appreciates the distinct nature of contemporary anti-Semitism, and the fact that it is perfectly possible for an ‘anti-racist campaigner’ to express anti-Semitic views.”

Herewith are three parallel scenarios. Two are fictitious. Everything in all three is factual if applied to the third.

Burma has silenced criticism of its ongoing ethnic cleansing and repression of the Rohingya people by smearing critics as anti-Buddhist bigots. The US, UK, and various EU countries have adopted this new Burmese definition of anti-Buddhism, and have moved to criminalize any attempt to boycott Burma as anti-Buddhist prejudice. The UK’s anti-terror PREVENT program has blocked discussion of the Rohingya plight as extremist speech, and the US has made federal flood relief, and the right of scholars to speak on campus, contingent on forswearing any boycott of Burma. The US has reassured the Burmese leadership that their war is our war, their value our values, to the extent of framing it in Biblical, apocalyptic terms, the Burmese regime representing Good, the Rohingya Evil.

After ISIS announced that its terror campaigns are being conducted in the name of worldwide Muslims and Islam, the US, UK, and various EU governments fell in line, legislating that criticism of ISIS therefore equals hate speech. The US Congress, many of whose members receive generous donations from pro-ISIS Muslim Americans, have condemned as anti-Muslim hatred attempts to challenge ISIS in the Security Council. The American peace group Muslim Voice for Peace has been accused of supporting terror for seeking to hold ISIS to international law. The UK has forced the closure of bank accounts of organizations seeking human rights in ISIS-held territory.

As Israel continues its seven decades of ethnic cleansing and repression of non-Jews, the US, UK, and various EU governments continue to accept its claim that its terror is being conducted in the name of Jews and Judaism, and thus to criticize its terror is anti-Jewish bigotry. The US has passed various laws to criminalize any censure of the terror, and both the US and UK have adopted definitions of anti-Jewish bigotry that legislate, in essence, that world Jewry, and whatever Israel does, are one and the same.

The first two scenarios would be universally condemned as an affront against Buddhism or Islam, the obvious attempt to exploit people and faith to empower the atrocities of a political entity. Why do we allow Zionism to similarly sell Jewry down the river?

Pro-Palestinian activists focus, understandably, on exposing Israel’s injustice against the Palestinians. But these efforts towards peace have so far failed because the Zionist narrative that informs the Western mindset has reduced Palestinians to a lesser people who are to blame for the violence on both ‘sides’. This is why the lopsided statistics of the so-called ‘conflict’, in which Palestinians are the vastly disproportionate victims, have no effect: Palestinian suffering is the suffering of lesser humans who are the cause of both their adversaries’ suffering and, equally, of their own.

But Jews are also victims of Zionism. Like its violence against the Palestinians, this was both physical violence, and dehumanization—that is, racism.

Zionism’s physical violence was to force mass human migration: Just as Palestinians could not be removed from their land except by violence against them, Zionism could not install the critical mass of Jews necessary for its settler state to succeed, without violence against Jews.[3]

Jeremy Corbyn, despite his silence on Palestine since assuming Labour leadership, and despite his complicity with unjust suspensions, continues to be held responsible in what is described as yet-again unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism. (The Telegraph, Feb 1, 2018)

The removal of Palestinians was achieved through outright ethnic cleansing and massacres, as well as starving them off the land by expropriating all means of livelihood. At the same time, the Zionist project secured settlers by systematically blocking safe haven for persecuted Jews other than in Palestine, by manufacturing violence to force the uprooting of Jews living elsewhere in peace, by removing Jewish orphans from their adoptive families to be sent to Palestine, and by blinding an entire society into a permanent psychosis, messianic fundamentalism coupled with the conviction of an existential anti-Jewish threat that is an incurable part of the human condition. Even during the darkest days of anti-Jewish persecution, Zionism’s first concern was its ethnic-nationalist settler project, not the welfare of persecuted Jews.[4]

Ben-Gurion’s comments to Jewish Agency leaders in October of 1942 offer a brief glimpse into this. Although Hitler had made Jews suffer, he told them, that suffering was reviving feelings of Jewish “nationalism” (Zionism), which they would exploit. But he warned that Zionism was being weakened by the democracies, because they “recognise the Jews as people having full rights of citizenship,” and he blamed setbacks for Zionism on what he called America’s “democratic attitude.”[5] Precisely the opposite of the endlessly-heard mantra that Zionism is ‘Jewish self-determination’, Zionism is the global theft of Jewish individual self-determination.

But all this anti-Palestinian and anti-Jewish terror is, obviously, violence against civilians to force a political goal—the core definition of terrorism. There is no way around this: The only way you can force a population from its own land, replace it with a different population, and keep the remnants of the indigenous population subservient, is by massive violence against civilians. In other words, the Zionist project itself is by its very nature one of terrorism. If to condemn this terror is anti-Semitic—if, as the chief rabbi claims, Zionism (and, implicitly, the Israeli state) is core to Jewish identity—then Jews as a people want, and are the doers of this terror. This would, to say the least, be a fatal marketing blemish for Zionism. The solution was to dehumanize both the Palestinians and Jews.

Israel’s dehumanization of the Palestinians, the obstacle to its settler state, is more obvious. It had to repackage its ethnic cleansing and ethnic subjugation into something good—defense—so it dehumanized Palestinians into an eternal threat, irredeemably violent as a race.

But Zionism also had to explain its profound violence against Jews, the means to its settler state; and it needed extraordinary impunity, to be able to operate outside the norms of civilized nations. It achieved both objectives by dehumanizing Jews—by dehumanizing Jews into the settler state itself. Zionism’s success in spinning Jewry as interchangeable with its ethnic-nationalist political invention is the core of the entire tragic ‘conflict’.

But it will also be Zionism’s, and the ‘conflict’s,’ Achilles Heel, once we are no longer afraid to confront it.

Israel is constantly reminding us that it is ‘the’ Jewish State— not ‘a’ Jewish state, in the sense of a national faith that any nation might adopt, but the Jewish State, the very embodiment of Jews themselves, all Jews, in a tribal sense, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their own self-identity. There is no parallel to this claimed synthesis between nation-state and ethnicity in the modern world. Israel, if we accept it, is Jewry, back to the Jewish kingdoms cited in the Old Testament, of which it claims to be the rebirth in order to claim that it is not a settler state. To maintain this theatre, archaeological artifacts associated with the Old Testament are transformed into artifacts of the nation-state’s history. The prize-winner of UN intransigence hides behind the messianic ‘return’ of the Biblical realm’s inhabitants, who will now build the Third Temple.

The result is that whatever the Israeli state does is done by Jews because they are Jews, not simply by individuals who happen to be Jewish. Condemnation of that state therefore equals condemnation of Jews, and so criticism of Zionism and Israel is thus anti-Semitic by definition.

And so Zionism, if we accept it, succeeds where all the bigots through the centuries never could. Traditional anti-Semitism can only attack externally—despite all its murder, all its horrors, all its desecration, traditional anti-Semitism is powerless to lessen the integrity of Jews or Judaism. Zionism, if we accept it, does. If we accept the Zionist narrative, then we have corrupted Jewry itself from within.

In this book by Dave Rich, anti-Semitism is defined by certain “ways of thinking about Jews, Zionism and Israel”. “Pro-Palestinian” signs at the top implicitly link Palestinian human rights activists with anti-Semitism.

In order to call itself ‘The Jewish State’, Israel ethnically cleansed much of the non-Jewish population and continues to block their return, keeps an entire population under a brutal military dictatorship in the name of Jews, and has reduced Gaza to a cesspool for lesser humans, in the name of Jews.

It is time to challenge this anti-Semitism in our official institutions. These include the US State Department and its Zionist definition of anti-Semitism, the British government and its use of the Zionist ‘International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’ definition—which by its very name exploits the memory of Hitler’s victims to empower new ethnic/racial atrocities—along with cynically-named Zionist pressure groups such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, and Community Security Trust.

The response to politically-motivated smears of anti-Semitism must no longer be mere defense—it must be offense, to expose the true anti-Semitism of the smear itself, and of those wielding it.

Zionism and (true) anti-Semitism have always enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Anti-Semitism gives Zionism meaning, while Zionism offers bigots a way to send Jews to a far-off ghetto while looking like they’re doing something nice.[6] These continually reinforce each other: by positioning itself as the embodiment of Jewry, Zionism ‘vindicates’ bigots who blame ‘the Jews’ for the crimes of the Israeli state. This ‘vindication’ reinforces more (true) anti-Semitism, which in turn re-‘vindicates’ Zionism.

One hundred and one years ago, Edwin Montagu, a Jewish member of the British Cabinet, accused his government of anti-Semitism for colluding with the Zionists. History has proven him correct, and we must do the same. Zionism’s devotees’ great libel against Jews must be called out for what it is: spinning its crimes as those of Jewry itself in order to use Jews as a human shield.

3. For Zionist anti-Jewish violence, especially during the British Mandate period, see Suárez, State of Terror.

4. Following are brief references for the large topics cited in this paragraph
• Ethnic cleansing: The best single source is Ilan Pappe’s classic Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
• Blocking of safe haven: This was a recurrent theme during the Mandate period, the most dramatic example being US Zionist leaders’ sabotaging of resettlement scheme created by President Roosevelt that would have given 300,000 DPs homes in the US and Britain, and 200,000 more in South America and Australia. Roosevelt’s aide, Morris Ernst, who handled the project, records this in his 1948 book, So Far So Good. The present author found further evidence in The National Archives (UK), FO 800/487, 110. Among other examples was the blocking of the attempt to get new homes in Denmark for the Exodus passengers (e.g., Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 46, 50, 178). Future Israeli prime ministers Ben-Gurion and Sharett both spoke at Jewish Agency meetings of the importance of preventing Jewish DPs from any option but Palestine. Decades later, during the US Reagan years, Russian Jews were stopped from emigrating to the US at the request of Israel (see Lazin, Fred A., “Refugee Resettlement and “Freedom of Choice’ – The Case of Soviet Jewry”)
• Manufactured violence: The most catastrophic example is the ‘false flag’ anti-Jewish terror in the early 1950s that destroyed the Jewish community in Iraq. See Suarez, State of Terror, 282-285, and Naeim Giladi, Ben-Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews. North African Jews were the targets of displacement by the early 1940s. See, e.g., see The National Archives (UK), KV 5/33, 37a, 38a, 35a (10 pages) London, “from our Palestine representative on the Jewish situation, as viewed by him.”
• Removal of Jewish orphans: The systematic removal of orphans from their adoptive families, as documented in author’s State of Terror, has elicited particular condemnation from the book’s critics, who maintain that the children were being safeguarded during the war, after which they were reunited with their parents. The book’s principal source is the account left by the Ashkenazy chief rabbi of Palestine, which the author has made available at paldocs.net (see Rabbi Herzog kidnapping trip, 1946). The reader is encouraged to read this declassified source document. Herzog, indeed, announced his intentions to the New York Times, with ten thousand children being his stated goal (Feb 25 1946). Independently, Professor Yosef Grodzinsky had earlier addressed this issue, based on entirely different sources, in his important book, In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II.
• Psychosis: This, too, is a common theme among British, US, and Jewish sources during the Mandate One example follows, from Henry Hunloke, Defence Security Officer in Palestine, January, 1943: The Jewish Agency “make one think that they have picked the strangest parts of Nazism, Fascism, Communism with a spicing of Tammany Hall as the system best suited for the control of Jews in Palestine.” Those with more moderate views are tolerated only until they become influential. “From a tender age,” children are brought up to have one aim only, the fulfillment of Zionism, and children have walked out on their parents when the parents try to instill some moderation on that aim. The system “is closely akin to that adopted by the Nazis,” and as history has shown, “in a comparatively short space of time, such teaching is very hard to eradicate.” The National Archives (UK), KV 5/33, 37a, 38a, 35a. Another example, from a Mr. Newton who had lived in the settlements: “Violence and intransigent nationalism,” he testified, “was fostered by the Jewish educational system,” and “the incitement and hysteria fostered systematically among the Jewish youth in Palestine. This education and political propaganda has produced youths and girls who were ready to use murder for their political ends.” (The National Archives, FO 371/45382, penciled ‘233’). As an example of instilled fear, Jewish DPs were separated into Zionist-run camps that proved to be virtual brain-washing camps, such that when the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry visited such camps in 1946, the DPs threatened mass suicide if sent to the US, because they would never be safe there (New York Times, Feb 18 1946). Into statehood, John Wilson, upon leaving the British delegation in Tel Aviv in mid-1953, described how Israeli officials have built up “a sickening jargon … the air is thick with propaganda … Misleading stories and press campaigns are worked up [and] censorship stifles the dissemination of honest news.” Several observers noted how the Israeli state, following in the footsteps of the Jewish Agency, conjured such hysteria with its manipulation of the news that it found itself having to take action against the threats it had invented. Regarding the Israeli government’s control of the domestic media, and thus of its population’s beliefs and attitudes, see Ilan Pappé’s Israel Out of the Frame.

5. The National Archives (Britain), Kew, WO 169/4334, G.S.I. HQ Palestine, Summary No. 12 (1-31 Oct 1942). This document can be seen at the website paldocs.net, under ‘Democracy /Democracy as obstacle to Zionist plans’.

6. Evidence that much of Zionism’s non-Jewish support came from people who saw it as an opportunity to keep Jews from immigrating, and get rid of those already present, is seen as early as Gertrude Bell, the famous English writer, traveller, archaeologist, and spy. She cited her diplomatic experience “to prove that the French are anxious to establish Jews anywhere [i.e., support Zionism] if only to have an excuse for getting rid of them.” Similarly, C.G. Montefiore, President of the Anglo-Jewish Association, testified in 1917 that “It is very significant that anti-Semites are always very sympathetic to Zionism.” (The National Archives, CAB 24/28/0063, 2; CAB 24/4/0014, 7). Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin reported this, and it is acknowledged, and exploited, by Jewish Agency leaders like Ben-Gurion, and blatantly exploited by the Irgun in its US funding ads in the major newspapers (see Suárez, State of Terror, ch 5 & 6).

7. The UK “Prevent” program, official statement, and criticism. After blocking the author from speaking in Portsmouth (UK), Prevent failed to deliver on a verbal promise to clear the author’s name from suspicion. Several months later, the talk was rescheduled without incident. At writing, the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has filed a new complaint against Corbyn, which also cites Suárez as evidence (CAA files fresh disciplinary complaint against Jeremy Corbyn…). At writing, Suárez does not know, and has never met or had any contact with, Jeremy Corbyn.

Jan 2016
• Anti-Semitic assaults SPIKE after WORST year on record for attacks on Jewish people — Express
• Jewish immigration to Israel from western Europe hits an all-time high following rise in anti-Semitic attacks — DailyMail
• European Jews feel as threatened as they did in the Holocaust, experts say — DailyMail

May 2016
• Number of hate crimes against Jews soars as report says anti-semitism is at the ‘core’ of far-Left beliefs — DailyMail• Hate crimes against Jews up sharply in Britain, audit finds — Times of Israel
• Ken Livingstone and the hard Left are spreading the insidious virus of anti-Semitism — Telegraph

About Tom Suarez

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Whilst the withhunt and the regular abuse of the antisemitism charge is frustrating, the Zionist insurgency has failed to halt Labour’s surge. The cries of anti-semitism have become genuinely boring for a lot of people because even amongst those opposed to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

The last few years I have noticed that even folks who really don’t pay attention to this stuff will roll their eyes when yet another Holocaust or surging anti-semitism story comes onto the news or shows up in the newspaper or appears online.

As if to *prove* it’s all about israel – the leader of the new Jewish Labour grouping, Jewish Voice for Labour, opposite to Newmark’s zionist Jewish Labour Movement, has been suspended from the Labour Party. For antisemitism. One Glynn Secker. Shows McNicol aint gone yet, still working through his resignation period.

a “secret” FB group w/ “thousands of members “, corbyn being one of them for not sure how long but up until 2015. although he didn’t sign himself up apparently. some in the group had included some anti semitic postings w/links (david duke!). frankly, i’d be more concerned if there were only 8 or 9 members, or 20. even 100. but with thousands of members how could anyone read most of what was posted. they said he commented on thread where someone used the term “zio”, which apparently is an off limit abbreviation in the UK — for some unknown reason.

you’d think the UK would get really sick of this after awhile. and this is the last paragraph in one of the articles

Last night, the Government pledged £13.4million for security at Jewish schools, synagogues and community buildings amid fears over anti-Semitic hate crime and terrorist threats. Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the cash, which follows £38.5million since 2015.

It’s over £50 million above and beyond the regular police /domestic UK security outlay to protect [all] the public.
As for the term “zio”, one of the papers reporting Greenstein’s expulsion “explained” (!) that it is “a derogatory word for Jews”.

“a derogatory word for Jews? what’s next, banning the term zionist?”
Often used by anti-Semites as a substitute for the word Jew as a feeble way to disguise their anti-Semitism. Happens all the time by those who are fans of Mondoweiss and by David Duke types. I am a Jew and a Zionist and proud to be in both groups.

Grover seems to be totally disconnected from any human logic. Makes sense, he’s a Zio, grown up in the Zio bubble.

Often used by anti-Semites as a substitute for the word Jew

Strange. A lot of people are “Jews” by the Zionists’ own definition and they are real, committed anti-Zionists.

I am a Jew and a Zionist and proud to be in both groups
Sure, you would be. But Gilad Atzmon or Jonathan Ofir or Yoni Falic, Jews by your definition and in fact much Jewer than thou by thine own criteria, because born “Israel” citizens, are genuinely against Zionism. So how is it possible to call them “Zio”?

Such absence of logic seems to be the main characteristic of Zionists.

I grew up in the bubble known as Chicago. I’m not a Zio. I’m a Zionist.
Who cares that Gilad Atzmon or Jonathan Ofir or Yoni Falic were all born in Israel? All that proves is that assholes are born everywhere. David Duke and Louis Farrakhan were born in the U.S.A.

@ Steve Grover: so you are proud to be a racist, an antisemite (against your fellow Semites the Palestinians), and proud to stifle any criticism of your beloved ZioWalhalla & its surrogates by using 1 of 2 nuclear tools: Antisemitism and the Holocaust.

“Often used by anti-Semites as a substitute for the word Jew as a feeble way to disguise their anti-Semitism. Happens all the time by those who are fans of Mondoweiss and by David Duke types. I am a Jew and a Zionist and proud to be in both groups.

Who cares that Gilad Atzmon or Jonathan Ofir or Yoni Falic were all born in Israel?

You do, because by your racist definition they are so utterly Jewish that they cannot be unjewed even on their own request, while your credentials as a Chicago Murkin remain forever shaky. Being a Zio criminal does not trump racial origin in your own book, remember. Or learn.

Good article Tom, as must-read for everyone, as is your book State of Terror.
One thing is clear: as a racist, genocidal state Israel lacks legitimacy, which is why it is in a continuous fight against so-called delegitimisation. The place delegitimised itself a long time ago, nobody did that for them.

The Zionists keep conflating Zionism with Judaism because that is the only path open to them to “justify” their racist, genocidal policies. But when they called out to explain what is antisemitic about those criticising Israel, I have never ever heard a proper, convincing argument.

The good thing about all this is that those same Zionists who delegitimised Israel are now pushing it towards the cliff edge, and will push the country off. Once annexation of the West Bank, which will happen since the 2-state solution is dead, it will be the end of the “Jewish state”, that racist, genocidal entity as we know it today.

I agree with you on this one.It is triply boring when their are simply no physical “anti – semitic” incidents to report such as attacks on Jews , attacks on their properties , synagogues etc. It is straight forward conflation and some of it is hilarious and an insult to the intelligence of ordinary British people yes the same British people who fought Nazism and who are now being accused effectively of being Nazis sympathisers.
IMHO at the risk of the accusation of being a conspiracy theorist an unholy alliance has developed between the Pro Israel Lobby Groups who have been in panic mode ever since the reality of a Pro – Palestinian PM and Pro – Palestinian Government became a strong possibility , the Blairite (uuuughhh) wing of the Labour Party and predictably the Tories and all three have desperately cobbled together and nurtured the clumsy” Anti – Semitic” campaign with the active connivance and support of a largely Ziocontrolled (yup Zio) press here in the UK. If anything the blatant lies and hypocrisies deployed largely via the Tory=Zionist press have backfired because they are so transparently baseless.

They have simply reinforced Corbyn`s standing in the Labour Party and have further undermined the relevance of the Blairite faction who are seen as being no more nor less than puppets for the Pro-Israel Groups and financiers.

Always good to hear Regurgitev , Zioland`s very own pet wallaby, in full flow.Here he is lamenting the growth of “anti Semitism” in the UK Labour Party. But let`s be clear before you watch and listen despite his G`day Blue Aussie twang he is a drop down dead 100 % ancient hysterical homeland Israeli and as far as he is concerned on this the full facts are known and there is no need for a thorough IDF type investigation:

We’ve gotta say in the language of social democracy, I think, these people are misogynistic, they are homophobic, they are racist, they are anti-Semitic, they are reactionary. I think that’s what we need to say, it’s an important message.”

Regev is a whore . Anyone who could act as PR head during the 2014 assault on Gaza debased themselves. Stormy Daniels has far more class and integrity.

He reminds me of Peter Cook”s biased judge speech.

“We have heard, for example, from Mr Bex Bissell – a man who by his own admission is a liar, a humbug, a hypocrite, a vagabond, a loathsome spotted reptile and a self-confessed chicken strangler. You may choose, if you wish, to believe the transparent tissue of odious lies which streamed on and on from his disgusting, greedy, slavering lips”

Thanks for the video. I hadn’t seen it before. More proof of what a slimy shyster Regev is.

Zionism is inevitably doomed. As is patently obvious, it is based on theft, racism and fascism.
No wonder it is being increasingly abandoned by Jews around the world.

All so predictable:

Henry Morgenthau Sr., renowned Jewish American and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, 1919: “Zionism is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history….The very fervour of my feeling for the oppressed of every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it professes to be leading them to the heights. Zionism is… a retrogression into the blackest error, and not progress toward the light.” (Quoted by Frank Epp, Whose Land is Palestine?, p. 261)

Asked to sign a petition supporting settlement of Jews in Palestine, Sigmund Freud declined: “I cannot…I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state….It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land….I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.” (Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna: 2/26/30)

Albert Einstein, 1939: “There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people…. Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs.” (Einstein and Zionism by Banesh Hoffmann, in General Relativity and Gravitation, eds. G. Shaviv and J. Rosen, Wiley, 1975, p. 242)

Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, 1944: “The concept of a racial state – the Hitlerian concept- is repugnant
to the civilized world, as witness the fearful global war in which we are involved. . ., I urge that we do nothing to set us back on the road to the past. To project at this time the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth is to launch a singular innovation in world affairs which might well have incalculable consequences.”

I heartily recommend Tom Suarez’s “State of Terror.” I also recommend – for people with the stamina to read it! – J.M.N.Jeffries’s “Palestine: The Reality,” first published in 1939 and reprinted recently. Jeffries was a journalist, covered Palestine, knew the people, had French, German, Latin, Arabic, and reminds me of the late I.F. Stone, as he is ready, willing, and able to read and digest government documents and extract truth and lies from them.
This didn’t start in 1967. Or 1948. Or even 1917. It started when the British government signed a treaty with an Arab leader promising them an independent state including Palestine.

Anyone remember when it was regarded as an untrue and anti-semitic canard ( “anti-semitic” often nowadays pronounced as if spelled “anti-semetic”, rhymes with “emetic”) to say that “Jews control the world” ?

Well, with the Jewish-Zionist attacks on anti-Zionism throughout EU and attacks on BDS throughout the USA, it seems to me that it is fair to say that “Jewish-Zionists ontrol the anglophone world” (“Zionists” fully spelled out ;-) ) is fairly incontrovertible.

And the need to cover up this fact is a given. And in the USA it is loyalty oaths (this time to Israel and AIPAC) all over again, 1950’s McCarthyism redux.

PABELMONT- “And in the USA it is loyalty oaths (this time to Israel and AIPAC) all over again, 1950’s McCarthyism redux.”

Indeed, he who pays the piper calls the tune! A further indication of our money corrupted system is an article in Naked Capitalism re: the Democratic Party and fundraising. Quotes and link:

“Uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, our Congressional parties now post prices for key slots on committees. You want it — you buy it, runs the challenge. They even sell on the installment plan: You want to chair an important committee? That’ll be $200,000 down and the same amount later, through fundraising…..” (Tom Ferguson)
….“Prioritizing fundraising, as Democratic Party officials do, has a feedback effect that creates lawmakers who are further and further removed from the people they are elected to represent. In 2013, the DCCC offered a startling presentation for incoming lawmakers, telling them they would be expected to immediately begin four hours of “call time” every day they were in Washington. That’s time spent dialing for dollars from high-end donors.” (Ryan Grim, Lee Fang) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/democrats-corrupt-congressional-pay-play-machine-sabotages-progressives-public-wil.html

I can’t warm to the argument that Zionism is anti-Semitic. I take anti-S to be prejudice – or the worse outcomes of prejudice – against people who are Jewish, just because they are Jewish. I don’t deny that it exists. But Z is prejudice in favour of people who are Jewish, just because they are Jewish, leading to unreasonable claims on their behalf and to disregard of Palestinian rights. Z insults those like Elizabeth B by calling them ‘self-hating’ etc.. But this is not just because they are Jewish but because they are Jewish and anti-Z.
The Z claim that all Jews are naturally or logically supporters of Z is false but it is not an expression of anti-Jewish prejudice unless Z is taken to be a bad thing, the reverse of what those advancing the claim believe.

Thank you for the comments. In my opinion, the flaw in your argument is the idea that Zionism “is prejudice in favour of people who are Jewish”. This is judging Zionism based on Zionism’s own construct. In truth, Zionism turns Jews, simply because they are Jews, into, well, into everything that Zionism and Israel have done. This is a smearing, not “prejudice in favour”, of people who are Jewish, just because they are Jewish.

‘You are committed to our glorious cause’ isn’t a smear, which is something intended to make ‘you’ look bad. On the contrary it is, at least to some extent, an expression of solidarity and admiration. It just can’t on any normal understanding of the words exoress opprobrium, hostility or prejudice against the person addressed. It doesn’t take that character even if the supposedly glorious cause is, in objective truth rather than in the opinion of the speaker, rubbish and if it victimises others. It is then the others who are the sole victims of the opprobrium, hostility and prejudice expressed or suggested by the words.

The State of Israel extends privileges to people who are Jewish in Palestine. To some extent even anti-Zionist Jews may benefit by comparison with anti-Zionist Gentiles. Whether to exclude anti-Zionists from Jewish privileges has long been a matter of dispute among Zionists.

I found a striking example when I was researching Israeli policy toward Argentina during the rule of the military junta there. Among the leftists arrested, tortured and killed by the junta there were many Jews. Israel persuaded the junta, with which it did profitable business, to release some of their Jewish prisoners on condition that they be taken straight to Israel. Some Israeli officials objected that many of these Jewish leftists were anti-Zionist ( ‘What do we want with such people?’) But others were prepared to overlook this because ‘after all, they are still Jews.’ (One of those rescued in this way was the publisher Jacobo Timmerman, who after coming to Israel campaigned against the war in Lebanon.)

I have the impression that the Zionist attitude toward dissident Jews may be getting tougher. If so we can expect that in future Jewish privilege will be made strictly dependent on support for Israel.

‘Anti-Semitism’ is not a rigorous concept and that is why it is difficult to define its relation to Zionism. I think it is less confusing not actually to equate the two and it is surely not necessary to go quite that far. We should emphasize that Zionism and anti-Semitism are closely related and symbiotic, that they share basic assumptions, that Zionism legitimizes, feeds on and fuels anti-Semitism, etc. That is enough.

If so we can expect that in future Jewish privilege will be made strictly dependent on support for Israel.

Why the future tense? Chomsky and Finkelstein and several others will attest that it is already ongoing.

‘Anti-Semitism’ is not a rigorous concept

Yes –and it is up to whoever opposes racism and tribalism to create a consensus around a simple and rigorous definition. Let us propose its definition as plain racism, i.e. discrimination against a group based on its circumstances of birth ONLY. Anything else is covered by freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry.

Zionism is indeed a BAD thing because its is a racist ideology that denies the right of self-determination of the Palestinians. For that reason Zionism lacks legitimacy and desperately tries to burnish its reputation by conflating with Judaism. That conflation in & of itself is an insult to the truly religious Jews, not those who claim to be religious in order to “justify” their racism & antisemitism against fellow Jews and fellow Semites the Palestinians.

And it is because of Zionism, NOT Judaism, with the help of its lapdog across the Atlantic, that the Middle East in the mess it is in.

It doesn’t take that character even if the supposedly glorious cause is, in objective truth rather than in the opinion of the speaker, rubbish and if it victimises others. It is then the others who are the sole victims of the opprobrium, hostility and prejudice expressed or suggested by the words.
No, it is not just “the others who are the sole victims of the opprobrium”. Zionism does not just “victimize others”. It victimizes JEWS. This has been my whole point.
Bluntly put: Zionism, taken at its word, claims that Jews, by virtue of being Jews, support ethnic cleansing, ethnic subjugation, and ethnically predicated atrocities. THAT is profoundly anti-Semitic.
Israel cannot have it both ways.

|| Tom Suarez: … Bluntly put: Zionism, taken at its word, claims that Jews, by virtue of being Jews, support ethnic cleansing, ethnic subjugation, and ethnically predicated atrocities. THAT is profoundly anti-Semitic. … ||

And par for the Zionist course. In the words of JeffB, a “dirty work” Zionist:

There is nothing anti-Semitic with blaming Jews for stuff that Jews institutionally support. … Not holding the Jews responsible for Jewish policy on the excuse that “well some Jews didn’t agree” is denying them agency. …

AND

Jews in America have chosen to identify with and institutionally support Israel. While not Israeli, they are cousins. As such they get some degree of collective credit for Israelis achievements and some degree of blame for Israel’s failings.

Israel doesn’t try to have it both ways in that respect. Z does not claim or accept for one minute that it produces atrocities, nothing more than deserved suffering, within necessity, when rightful claims are resisted. It claims to defend the sacred rights of the Jewish people and to be a light to the nations into the bargain. That is profoundly philo-Semitic: also, all things considered, profoundly shocking. Pro or philo attitudes can be just as unfair and just as corrupting morally as anti or miso ones.

Sometimes a movement is led by manipulators and the followers are dupes. But surely it is normal for an appeal to prejudice to be an important part of getting people to follow the band. And quite possible for the manipulators to be in the end convinced by their own propaganda. I am not sure how well this model fits quasi-religions like Z.

None of the accusations are even remotely true. But they seem to be repeated. Maybe repetition against evidence will eventually be the source of his victory, but with the aggressively, incessantly insinuated “wrongdoing” he will, imho, have to craft a “what about” response or something more clever.

Of course Zionism is antisemitic, and for the reasons expressed by Tom Suarez. It falsely implicates all Jews in the crimes perpetrated by Israel upon the Palestinian people, thereby setting up even those of us who openly oppose Israel for possible recrimination, once the tide turns and the public realizes that it’s the Palestinian’s cause that is just, not the Israeli’s.

Meanwhile I wonder if said turnabout might be advanced by way of our utilizing the civil court system to stop Israel/Zionists from insisting that it/they speak and act for all Jews, since this claim not only is false but is injurious to individuals such as Tony Greenstein, Ken Livingston, not to mention myself, who, upon returning from Beirut after the Israel’s US supported invasion of Lebanon in 1982, spoke out against Israel and for this effort received death threats. Perhaps a class action suit could be introduced, demanding that Zionists stop intimidating those who oppose Israel and Zionism.

Such a court action would not only expose Zionism for what it is, but allow a historically accurate narrative of Israel/Palestine to be heard.

“As well as the mural, the signatories, Jonathan Arkush, the president of the Board of Deputies, and Jonathan Goldstein, the chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, cite what they claim is Corbyn’s friendship with Hezbollah and Hamas, and his opposition to the extradition of controversial Muslim cleric Raed Salah.”

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